


The Memory of All That

by Lacanthrope



Category: Captain America (Movies), Fallout 4, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Crossover, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacanthrope/pseuds/Lacanthrope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks sometimes that he might be a ghost stuck haunting these ruins, waiting for something to finally release him. But ghosts do not bleed and they do not dream. So he’s not sure what he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day ? of ?

**Author's Note:**

> In celebration of logging 200 hours and still not beating the main quest, I give you...stucky?
> 
> You don't really need to be familiar with Fallout, but just in case you're curious, check out the [Wiki](http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki).
> 
> Title comes from Ella Fitzgerald's [They Can't Take That Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExmoiGZuiFQ).

Time works different out on the Wasteland, that much the Soldier knows.

Sometimes he’ll rest his eyes for what feels like a moment, the sun warm on his face, only to reopen them and find the sun long gone out of the sky. Sometimes he’ll walk by a torn-up body he saw seemingly weeks ago and it’ll still be in the same stage of decay. And sometimes he’ll come across a group of raiders bleeding out in a corroded factory and when he comes back later, there’s no trace of the blood or the gore or the bodies.

He tried leaving once. He walked south for days and days, losing his boots to the sucking mud of the marshes and his arm jamming from the damp. There was nothing except rot and the rusted skeletons of cars, their operators picked clean long ago. He dreamt one night that the mud was rising around him, flooding into his mouth and dragging him under. He turned around at first light and the ruins of the Commonwealth were just steps behind him, like he had never really left. He thinks sometimes that he might be a ghost stuck haunting these ruins, waiting for something to finally release him. But ghosts do not bleed and they do not dream. So he’s not sure what he is. 

He’s found that counting things by days is unreliable at best and terrifying at worst. So he’s not exactly sure how long it’s been since he’s seen another person. At least, another person who doesn’t have blood on their teeth and a knife in their hands. Long enough that when he spots the man walking down the street below the bombed-out apartment the Soldier’s been squatting in, he isn’t sure what to do. 

The man is dressed in faded civilian clothes and walks like this place doesn’t reek of death. It might have been a while since the Soldier’s seen another person, but he knows that people don’t walk like that out here.

That thought pulls at a cold strand of dread. No one has come after him in a while, but if there is one thing the Institute is, it is persistent. The Soldier brings up his rifle and finds the man in his sights. Coursers were designed to be as unremarkable as possible but the man doesn’t follow that guideline. He looks like the men the Soldier has seen on the frayed posters around here, all strong, symmetrical features and bright, clear skin. He is tall as well, much taller than the few people The Soldier’s seen and has broad shoulders that make him look like one of the Commonwealth’s bronze statues come to life. The man is an outlier of every parameter and a tight feeling coils up inside the Soldier. It feels like a memory surfacing, unpeeling itself from his fragmented brain. He’s thinks for an insane moment that he should lower his rifle and get the man to look at him.

Before he can, the echo of a Suicider’s mini nuke pings off the buildings and up to the Soldier. He brings his rifle around and sees one charging towards the man. It’s still a ways off, but that won’t matter much if it gets any closer. The Soldier releases a slow breath and pulls the trigger. The ensuing explosion is bright and loud, followed by a moment of heavy silence.

Then the sounds of the Wasteland come rushing back in: distant gunfire, explosions, and the overhead shriek of radgulls. The Soldier trains his rifle over the wreckage and stops on the man who is now shading his eyes against the sun. His face is pinched in confusion then a painted-perfect smile lights up his face. The Soldier isn’t sure what he is smiling at until the man salutes. A strange warmth pulses underneath the Soldier’s skin. The man is smiling at him.

The Soldier rolls back from the broken window and crouches against the wall. He’s not sure what the function of this feeling is. It could be panic, but that is something that has long been programmed out of him. It makes him aware of his body in a strange way. He can feel exactly where his clothes brush against his skin, the itch of his beard on his cheeks, and the roar of his heart beat in his ears.

This is a situation he is unprepared for.

He grabs his bag and runs.

***

The Soldier knows a lot of things. He knows how long it will take for an average-sized human to bleed out from an arterial wound, how to track someone through a destroyed city, how to make a head shot from a mile off. But his almost-encounter with the other man has made him aware of a glaring hole in his knowledge. Out here, any blind spot can and will be exploited and if there is one thing the Soldier will never allow again, it’s that.

He needs intel so he breaks into the Boston Public Library and comes face to face with a group of angry Super Mutants. Just as he brings up his rifle to engage, the security system comes online and he slowly backs into a dark stairwell.

When the screaming has stopped, he hacks a nearby security terminal and makes his way deeper into the library. The smoking wreckage of the downed security bots doesn’t quite reach the deeper parts of the library and the air starts to feel different. It’s cool against his skin but not unpleasant. It reminds him of another library somewhere else; somewhere before the body he has now. Where the shelves were intact and full of books and there was someone with him. There is almost always someone else with him in these fragments of memory; he can never seem to see their face but he knows enough that it’s the same person laughing with him, running in front of him, smiling at him. He knows these things like he knows how to take a head shot from a mile off.

He was told by one of his many handlers that these were not memories at all, he was not wired to remember and he did not exist before they made him. But even still, these memories, what else could they be, would slowly unfold themselves whenever they got a chance. The Soldier has come to realize that there are some parts of him not even the Institute could burn out.

The library he’s standing in now is nothing like that library somewhere else. It’s been used up, broken down, and he is alone. He wonders if it’s a sign. He’s not sure if he believes in those but from the heavy feeling growing inside him, he thinks he might.

But under a shattered bookshelf he finds a magazine that doesn’t crumble under his fingers. He thinks that might mean something too.

***

He climbs his way out of central Boston, narrowly avoiding a large group of drifting ferals, and finds an uninhabited overpass. Up high, he can see a radiation storm rolling in from the Glowing Sea and the wind has a caustic bite when he breathes it in. He’s got some time, exactly how much he’s not sure, but enough to lean back against a car and flip open the magazine.

The people in the pictures look much like the man from earlier. The Soldier counts this as a marker of reliable intel. The magazine suggests that before engaging with a target, good personal appearance is required.

Health is first on the list and it states eight hours is the minimum allowance for sleep. Sleep is not something the Soldier likes, let alone for eight hours. It’s a long time for things to go wrong and for things he doesn’t want to remember to crawl into the front of his head.

Next is posture. He tries to match the square, pulled-back shoulders of the man in the picture but all that does is send a stress tremor through where his left arm is bolted onto his body.

Under cleanliness, it states dirt under fingernails must be cleaned out and clothes must be washed regularly. The Soldier looks down at his hands. The one that has nails has dirt wedged so far under them that he’s not sure what they would look like without. The other hand’s metal is dull, scratched, and smudged with grime. As for his clothes, the body he took them off of had still been warm; but the Soldier can still sometimes smell the rot.

Another feeling starts to creep underneath his skin. It isn’t the pleasant warmth from earlier and it makes him aware of himself in an entirely different way. It makes him aware of how his hair hangs from his head in long greasy strands and how itchy his face is underneath the thick scruff. The other man seems out of time: pulled from the magazine, from the posters, from the statues. Even still, the man makes the Soldier, who was made for this brutal Wasteland, feel out of place here and in his own body.  
He shuts the magazine. The radiation storm is now edging over the Wasteland and soon it’ll be over the city. He needs to find shelter.

***

The Commonwealth Bank is deserted and mostly dust and darkness. There are large stacks of paper money littering the floor and he picks up a thick stack in one of the corridors. Out here, it is useless but his mind supplies what it could buy: pencils, oranges, whiskey, sketchbooks. He doesn’t know why his mind decides on those items, as far as he can remember, he has never actually seen an orange. But he can taste one and feel the juice dripping down his chin. The unknown but familiar someone hovers just over his shoulder and the Soldier wants to turn around and show them. He thinks maybe it’s him who is haunted, this ghost the one keeping him in this place. He’s not sure if that’s any better.

He picks an office in the far corner that has a semi-intact door. There’s an intermittent buzz from the outside storm and he can feel the radiation brush against his skin then crackle away. He won’t be the only thing trying to get out of the storm, but if he is quiet and careful, he won’t have to find out what.

***

He wakes from his huddled sleep to find a mutant hound biting down on his arm. It drags him out from under the desk and throws him into a bookshelf on the other side of the room. There’s some pain as the bookshelf breaks underneath him but he also reaches out for a broken piece of shelving.

The hound lunges at him and the Soldier drives the broken shelving under its jaw and into the thick meat of its head. The hound lets out a loud, ugly huff that smells like radiation sickness then collapses. The Soldier lies underneath the weight of it for a moment, taking stock. He can hear the huffing breath of another hound somewhere else in the building and the heavy steps of a Super Mutant trudging down the hallway. He needs to go.

After some struggle, the Soldier rolls the hound off. A stale rush of air gurgles out of it and the Soldier gets lightheaded for a few moments. He goes to pick up his bag and rifle but only one arm responds properly. He looks at the one the hound had bitten down on. One of the metal plates has shifted underneath another, effectively jamming the rest of his arm from moving. He tries to readjust it but his arm makes a crunching sound and a jolt of uncomfortable pressure snaps up his side.

He makes a sling out of the office’s decaying curtain and edges his way out the window.

***

Something has the ruins of Boston stirring. Usually the city is left to the feral ghouls so soon after a radiation storm but on his way to Hester’s Consumer Robotics, the Soldier runs into three groups of raiders. They aren’t in their entrenched territories, but in the middle of the street, running like there’s a deathclaw behind them.

When fully functional, this would be a moderate inconvenience. With one of his arm out of commission, it does not go smoothly. By the time the Soldier has made it to the Hester’s, he has managed to stop the most of the bleeding.

The plant is thankfully deserted except for a few Protectrons who seem more concerned than homicidal and one of them even tries to offer him medical aid. The smell of its charging shock drives makes his stomach roll unpleasantly and for a moment he thinks he’s back in the Institute, the scientists smiling around him as they lower the reprogramming machine over his head.

He lets the bot follow him into an office, then sneaks out and pushes a cabinet in front of the door.

He finds a tool kit and goes to work on his arm. He manages to shift the broken plate and get his arm moving again but every time he rotates his wrist, an unpleasant click grates somewhere inside. It’s a minor inconvenience since the arm is now functional, but unpleasant nonetheless. He packs away the tools and spots a small rag under one of the benches. He stares at it a moment, then picks it up and starts wiping down his arm. A dull shine eventually appears in the metal and the Soldier stows the rag carefully into his bag.

There’s a dented mirror and a dripping sink as well. He stares at himself a long while, not sure to make of what is looking back at him. Then he takes out his knife and wets it under the trickle. Sometimes his body will fill in the holes in his memory by itself. He doesn’t remember ever shaving, but his hand is sure and smooth as it glides the blade across his face.

Once his face is bare, he stares back at the mirror. The Soldier tries a smile like the man from earlier but his eyes don’t light up like the man’s did. Instead his eyes stay flat and his lips end up curling against his teeth. He doesn’t try again.

He thinks about cutting his hair, but his hands don’t seem to know how. But it does remind him of someone else’s hands running through his hair and lingering for a few moments against his scalp. His skin warms and he puts his knife back in its sheath.

The only door with a lock is for the storage room next to the trapped Protectron. He sits against the far wall and places his rifle across his lap. The Protectron knocks something over in the next room while repeating _Protect and Serve_ over and over.

The Soldier falls into an unsteady half-sleep and dreams he’s wearing a uniform made out of coarse wool. There’s someone beside him with their hand on his shoulder and a pleasant warmth pulses underneath his skin. Before he can turn and look at them, the ground drops out from beneath him and he’s falling.

He wakes up soaked in sweat and clutching his rifle. The Protectron is now banging into the wall, still droning _Protect and Serve_.

He spends the rest of the night curled behind a stack of crates on the other end of the factory.

***

The Soldier is on a rooftop a half-mile north of Hester’s when he hears a scream. It’s close by, probably a child or a woman from the pitch. He jumps to the next roof and peers over the edge into the alleyway below. There are two women and child huddled on top of a truck and a hoard of ferals trying to claw their way up the sides. One of the women is holding a pipe pistol but her hands are shaking and her face is pale under her sun burnt skin. The family’s pack Brahmin in already dead, its insides spread across the cracked asphalt.

He counts ten ferals, which usually means there are at least half as many more nearby. They are best dealt with at a distance but there are four bullets left in his rifle and none in his bag. He has his knife, but using it would mean getting close. Close enough for them to overwhelm him and tear out his insides. He wonders what they might pull out.

A loud bang interrupts his thoughts. The Soldier turns and sees the tall, broad-shouldered man pounding his fist against a garbage can lid on the other end of the alley.

“Hey, why don’t you try your luck down here?”

The Soldier blinks and feels his mouth drop open slightly. In the times it takes for it to happen, the ferals have turned their attention to the man. The man who’s only visible weapon is a garbage can lid. He probably won’t survive the encounter. For some reason, this thought makes an angry, molten heat boil up inside the Soldier.

He discharges four bullets into four snarling ferals’ heads. He then rolls onto a truck below and makes his way down the front of its cabin. As he lands on the street, a feral lunges at him and the Soldier breaks its face open with the butt of his rifle. It crumples soundlessly to the ground and another feral snarls towards him. He kicks out its knees and brings down his rifle again. Its head shatters and it slumps at his feet.

The rest of the ferals are swarming the man, who is actually fending them off relatively effectively with the metal lid. The Soldier has a moment to take the sight in before he takes out his knife. Just like shaving, his body knows the motions.

When the last feral falls to the ground, the Soldier’s hands feels tacky and wet. He thinks about wiping the blade on his pants, but then remembers the clean, well-dressed people in the magazine. He also remembers the man is now standing a few feet away. Strangely, he starts to sweat.

“You know, I had them on the ropes”, says the man with a deep and friendly voice, like he’s used to cracking jokes after a back alley brawl. The Soldier doesn’t have that particular skill set. He hasn’t had time to gather enough intel. The Soldier looks over his shoulder at the man.

The man has a grin on his face like getting swarmed by ferals is something he enjoys. The look stays on his face for a few more moments then it slips into something else. The Soldier takes a step back. Although the man looks like he’s well-fed and sleeps regularly, there is no mistaking the desperation now pouring off of him.

“Bucky?” The man takes another step towards him and the Soldier takes another one back. There’s nothing the Soldier has that this man would want, unless he has made a serious error in judgement. “Jesus Christ, it is you—“

The Soldier brings up his rifle and the man stops. He isn’t entirely sure if he had a bullet that it would stop this man. He hasn’t gathered enough intel to know what to do next that doesn’t end with him slitting the man’s throat. He doesn’t want to kill anyone anymore, but he doesn’t want to die either. Here on the Wasteland, those two things are almost always one in the same.

So he turns and runs.

***

It’s been awhile since he has had to run from something. The last time he had, it had been through the destroyed remains of an ironworks. He had dragged himself through the hallways while half-drugged, covered in blood, and a Courser right behind him. This time is different. The air comes easily into his lungs and his legs carry him in fast, even strides down the street. Even still, he can hear the man coming up close behind him.

The Soldier vaults off a dumpster, onto a fire escape, and through a half-broken window. A feral ghoul stirs to life in the corner of the apartment but the Soldier doesn’t stop. He crashes through to the other side and out of the building. He’s weightless for a moment then he’s rolling to cushion his fall. He hears the ghoul shriek, then a gunshot cut it short. He glances over his shoulder in time to see the man throw himself out of the window the Soldier just came through and land with a graceful roll.

The Soldier ducks into an alley and runs through the maze of passage ways in between the buildings. He still hasn’t fully healed from his run-in with the raiders and knows he can’t sustain his getaway for long. The man behind him seems willing to run him off the edge of the earth.

The next corner he takes opens up onto a large square with no cover and two exits. So the Soldier jumps up onto a truck and dives through an open door in an apartment. He rolls behind a desk and gets his breathing under control.

The man’s footsteps come to a stop just outside the building. There’s no more noise for what could be a few minutes or a few hours. The Soldier risks a glance around the broken edge of the desk.

The man is standing in the middle of the square. His back is to the Soldier and his shoulders don’t seem as broad, probably because they are slumped. The man kicks a brick and it flies across the square and into the side of a preservation shelter. The force of the blow knocks the door loose and a pile of bones spills out.

The man doesn’t move for a second, but then a strange laugh is bubbling out of him. His shoulders start to shake then the rest of his body follows. It’s not a laugh like the Soldier has ever heard, like the ones Raiders make when they gunning down a caravan or the Gunners when one of them makes a good shot. It’s not really a laugh at all. The man’s shoulders then start to heave and the laugh turns into a wounded sound. In the few moments the Soldier had looked at him, he seemed completely unscathed by the ferals. He wonders why the man is making a noise like that.

Then it stops.

The man squares his shoulders and it’s like the past few moments never happened. He’s back to looking like he belongs on a plinth in the middle of the square. The Soldier wonders what the plaque underneath him would say.

The man tucks the pile of spilt bones back into the preservation shelter, shuts the door, and marches out of the square.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooww, this took forever to post... sorry about that. Fingers crossed I get my shit together for the next bits. Comments and crits greatly appreciated!  
> Gotta thank [Lorn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqkD9PpH8W8). for setting the mood on this one.

He stays in the apartment longer than he should. He knows he needs to move but a fine tremor has developed in his unmodified hand and he thinks maybe this could be his body filling in the gaps again. It feels like something has become unmoored in his body, something long forgotten that is now drifting just under the surface.

But his body isn’t always right. Sometimes he hesitates on a shot, even when some abomination is bearing down on him. Or when he sits down and he just doesn’t want to get back up again. He clenches his unmodified hand into a tight fist and tucks it into his jacket.

Music from a nearby radio drifts in through the busted doorway. His feet twitch as another memory dredges itself up. No matter where he goes in the Wasteland there always seem to be plenty of opportunities for the ghosts crowding around inside his body to surface. He draws his knees up to his chest and clenches his unmodified fist tighter.

While he waits for his body to settle, he eyes up the rest of the apartment. Water drips from a large, jagged hole in the ceiling and seeps into the already weathered and half-eaten furniture. The wallpaper has faded into an obscure pattern that might have once been flowers. There’s the outline of roses or the tiny petals of a paisley print, but then he blinks and there are only dull smears instead. There’s nothing seemingly salvageable, so he turns to his rifle. Some of the brain matter and blood has hardened. He picks at it with the tip of one of his modified fingers and watches the flakes drift down to add another layer of grime to the floor.

The Soldier isn’t sure how long he’s been in the apartment. The encounter with the man seemed hours ago but the shadows on the floor haven’t moved an inch. Maybe it’s been days and the man has already left the ruins and moved on. But something itches in the Soldier at the thought. The man wouldn’t just leave. It’s just one of those things the Soldier knows. What concerns him is that he has no intel to back it up.

That thought is enough to get him onto his feet again. He climbs through the hole in the ceiling and onto the roof.

The music is smothered by a scatter of far-off gunfire. A few miles off, a Vertibird collides with a high-rise. The ensuing explosion flashes warmth across the Soldier’s face. The shrapnel twirls in huge, smoky arcs through the sky but something much smaller drops from the flaming cockpit and quietly plummets downwards. The warmth is gone just as quickly as it appeared and he’s left shivering.

He moves in the opposite direction.

***

He’s only three blocks away from the Old Corner Bookstore when the mist rolls in. Like most things on the Wasteland, it appears suddenly and makes everything worse. Worse because the Soldier can’t see anything further than a few feet, but mostly because it makes him feel like he’s in the dreams he has when he sleeps deep enough for them. The ones where he’s looking for street names and people’s faces but in their place are a dull, unfocused smears.

But this isn’t a dream. There’s no waking up from the Wasteland.

He drops down onto the street. With the added moisture in the air the crust of gore on his hands and around his neck has started to liquefy into a tacky mess that leaks down his sleeves and jacket collar. He readjusts his pack and rifle but he can’t shift the discomfort. He feels like some Wasteland creature lurking through this mist. He definitely looks like one. The discomfort of that knowledge is harder to readjust for.

Then a cold squeeze of water seeps through his patched boots. He steps back and eyes up the river that cuts through the middle of the street and disappears into the mist on either side. The last time he came this way there was no river but it also doesn’t look newly formed. Most of the pavement has given way underneath the water and there’s a layer of lichen clinging to the jagged edges.

When he’s sure there is only the mist he crouches and plunges his hands into the water. A slight sting of radiation brushes against his skin but he keeps his hands under until one is scrubbed raw and pink and the other is shining like a fish under the water. The bright, perfect people in the magazine had a similar quality with the way their skin seemed to glow even under grain of the black and white photos. He scrubs some water over his face then runs his hands through his hair until the greasy strands stay pulled back.

The people in the magazine also had clothes with crisp, sharp edges. He’s seen similar ones on mannequins behind some of the store windows. At first he thought the mannequins were actual people and he had a hard time walking down the streets without drawing his knife at every step. They’re usually clustered together like they were in the middle of shaking hands, smiling, greeting each other when the flash of the bombs froze them in time. Sometimes he can hear the low murmur of their conversation and feel the itch of wearing a cheap suit scratching the back of his neck.

But even the mannequins and their clothes have been worn down by the Wasteland. The man from earlier didn’t have those clothes and he still looked like someone cut straight from a magazine. So maybe it’s not about the clothes. The Soldier picks at the stains on his sleeves and thinks that in his own case they would probably help.

Out in the mist, something moves.

The Soldier backs away from the river, his knife settling into his hand, and crouches behind a large chunk of displaced road. Underneath the chill of the water rolling off his hair and down his collar, there’s a phantom pressure of someone at his back, whispering _cover me_ with hot breath against his ear.

He’s tired of this someone, this ghost, always clinging at the edges of his mind. But even if he found a way to exorcize it, he’s not really sure he’d follow through. Then it would be just him out here. And he thinks he’s getting tired of that too.

Across the river a head floats through the mist.

The Soldier blinks a few times but the head stays. The pressure at his back prickles and that’s when he just _knows_ : this is what has been keeping him in this aborted land, haunting him this whole time. It isn’t flitting in and out of focus like in his dreams or the waking hours in between. Now the Soldier can see it clearly. Pressure builds at the back of his throat. He wants to ask why its keeping him here.

Instead he calculates the distance, the wind, the heaviness of his knife. The only thing he’s never had to account for before is the slight tremor in his unmodified hand. He switches the knife into the other hand. He can make the throw, but he’s unsettled by the thought of the knife going straight through the thing and it just smiling knowingly, like it had read all the Institute files, and saying _you know why you’re here_.

The Soldier shivers and tries to focus on the details and that’s when he realizes the head isn’t really floating at all. It’s attached to a set of familiar broad shoulders. It’s just the man from earlier. He has the sudden urge to laugh, which is concerning in its own way.

A woman appears next to him, the one who had been holding the pistol earlier. The Soldier can’t see if she’s still holding it, but she’s Wastelander so it probably isn’t far. The child and the other women appear in another break of mist. They’re moving quickly like they have a destination in mind so it only takes a moment for the man then the women and the child to be swallowed up by the mist again.

The Soldier knows he needs intel, ammunition, food, and water. He knows this list better than almost anything else. It’s what has kept him alive out here, and he likes to think that’s important. But now the list doesn’t seem to be sitting flat in his mind in the usual way. Instead it sloughs off in the wake of the man disappearing through the mist. It’s another surprise of sorts and it unnerves him in some undefinable way.

The man knew him, or at least thought he was familiar. He’d even called the Soldier a name. The Soldier has tried not to pull on that thread. The Institute clinically discouraged that line of inquiry and out on the Wasteland there hadn’t really been a point. If he pulled enough to unravel something, what would he do with the undeniably hideous mass of it? He was still out among the vicious and the dead.

But it’s not just about the name. It was the look on the man’s face and the way he shifted towards the Soldier. In the moment, the Solider mistook it for the possessive way a Wastelander would curl over their rifle. But now the Soldier has run that moment through and through and it was much more like the way someone would reach for a heavy door, knowing the relief they would feel after they locked themselves behind it for the night.

The more the man recedes into the mist, the more that thread curls further and further away. If the man is connected to it, then maybe it isn’t as hideous as the Soldier thought.

The Soldier shoulders his bag and crawls after them through the mist.

***

The mist starts to thin out near the outskirts of the city. It’s a relief because it’s now easier to maintain sightlines but that isn’t the only reason. It doesn’t feel like he’s lost in some almost-dream anymore. Everything is fast becoming sharper and more real. He wonders if it might transfer over to him somehow. He could walk up and introduce himself with a firm handshake and relaxed smile, just like the magazine suggested.

At that thought, he starts to sweat.

Back on the rooftops, he finds an ammo box full of .45 rounds tucked underneath a ventilation shaft. It’s not enough for a sustained attack but out here it’s the difference between a tough fight and your last fight.

But nothing crawls out from the rubble or starts shooting. He starts to feel something like hope right until they reach the edge of the city. Standing on the last high-rise, the Soldier watches the group walk into the wide open expanse of the north. All he has to do is scale down the building and follow.

But he thinks of the marshes in the south: waking up with the taste of mud filling his mouth, the exhaustion in his muscles from the days of walking only to turn around and see the ruins looming just behind him. Even though the face in the mist turned out to be the man, the Soldier can’t shake the ghostly face saying _you know why you’re here._ The words slide under his skin and make him shudder. All this time, he’s been trying to escape. He should have known better. The Wasteland doesn’t let go that easily.

But maybe this time, moving towards something, it’ll be different. He drops onto the street and stands in the shadows of the buildings. Then he takes a step forward. Then another. And then he finds himself on the road and the city sitting firmly behind him.

A laugh shakes out of him and as horrible as it sounds, it’s the best thing he’s heard out here yet.

***

The north is nothing like the city or the south. It’s miles and miles of rolling hills and the sun is relentless even under the shadows of the withered trees and abandoned trucks. His first instinct is to head off the road and follow the group from the surrounding scrub brush. There’s a whisper in the back of his mind though: his handler at the Institute saying _don’t leave the roads whatever you do._ It grows into an incessant buzz every time he goes to step off the cracked pathway. Then he sees the bloody drag marks at the edge of the road.

So he stays on the road and keeps the group in his sightline. It’s difficult with the constant rise and fall of the hills. Maybe he could drown out here too, suffocating under the endless miles and miles of rolling hills.

The sun is only just beginning to set when the group arrives at a farm. When the Soldier was first out here alone, he was on a farm just like it. The people gave him food and water, not knowing what he was. And he wasn’t much of anything after the Institute. But he was enough of something to help with the harvest and bring water in from the well. He thought that maybe the Institute was wrong. Maybe there was something else he could be used for after all. But then the whispers started behind his back, people eyeing up his arm, whispers of _synth_ dripping from one mouth to another. And even when they saw him bleed, they hadn’t believed he was anything else.

So the Soldier sits a mile away on top of the burnt-out hull of a truck, and watches the man shake people’s hands. The farm looks well-populated behind its patchwork fences. Even from this distance there's the steady hum of generators working to pump water in and keep the lights on. One of the settlers shakes the tall man’s hand and slaps him on the back. The man smiles and ducks his head. At first the Soldier thinks the man is uncomfortable with the small crowd gathered around him but then he shifts and the light from the nearby barrel fires make him look like some kind of strange golden idol among the Wastelanders. The Soldier’s seen them worship stranger things so it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch with the man towering over them all golden and strong.

Once the excitement dies down though, the settlers peel off one by one and make their way inside the scattered shacks and the man goes into one of the larger ones.

The Soldier crawls under the chassis of the truck and thinks about sleeping. He doesn’t, not out here where just about anything could crawl under here with him. So he huddles against the truck’s front axis and waits.

***

The man doesn’t stay at the farm, despite the settlers’ obvious protests but they do gather at the gate to wave him goodbye. The beginning of a radiation storm is building far to the east and it casts a sickly green hue across their faces. None of them look very happy. The Soldier understands their frustration. The farm is defensible and self-sufficient. Nothing out in the Wasteland could possibly be worth more than that.

But still, the man starts along the road. He’s headed the same way he came so he’s probably going back to the city. Without the group, the man moves much faster than before, even through the thick clusters of abandoned cars. Out here, life is one slow crawl to the next shelter, the next can of food, the next ammo cache. But the man moves through the Wasteland with an intent the Soldier doesn’t think he’s ever seen. Like he’s on a mission. The Soldier shivers at the thought.

It’s also when he realizes they aren’t the only ones out here.

Just beyond the scrub bush is a barely-there rhythmic click that’s keeping pace with them. Anything that can do that is not anything good. He reaches for his rifle and loads it in one smooth movement. Then he catches a glimpse of the source of the noise and the bottom fall out of his stomach.

Moving through the dead trees and abandoned cars in the hills, is a Courser.

The Soldier ducks behind a car and clutches his rifle against his chest. There’s no way it saw him but that doesn’t stop his mind from screaming to stay down, don’t move, don’t breathe. He pushes his head back against the rough metal of the car until pain ripples across his scalp and his mind quiets enough for him to peer over the car.

The Courser is on the road now, fast approaching the man. It moves steadily and makes almost no sound, like it’s not really here at all, just a bad dream moving through the Wasteland.

The Soldier’s teeth clatter as his shivers grow. The man still hasn’t seen it. He won’t even stand a chance. Cold dread floods the Soldier’s system but he still steadies his grip on his rifle. Bullets won’t do much. Nothing really does much to Coursers. They last one he dealt with was in an ironworks and he barely managed to knock it into a vat of molten steel. There is nothing like that out here. It’s just him.

So he lines up his sights and pulls the trigger.

The car next to the Courser explodes and the Courser is thrown into the side of a truck. The truck panel caves inward then the Courser crashes to the ground. Even with its coat smoking and its leg bent at a strange angle, it doesn’t stay down. The Soldier fires again and a piece of its shoulder bends inwards. But like every abomination out here, the Courser moves relentlessly forward. So the Soldier does the same.

It ducks between a cluster of cars and the Soldier slows to a cautious jog. If he can hold it off long enough, the man should be able to get enough distance between them. But as the Soldier closes in on the Courser, he realizes that the man isn’t running in the right direction.

He’s blindsided by the Courser driving the butt of its rifle into his head. He goes down but lashes out with his leg and it stumbles backwards. There’s barely enough time to scramble up and get his knife out before the Courser swings at him again.

As he steps out of range the world tilts strangely. He blinks the blood out of his eyes and the Courser tackles him into a car. The metal groans under the impact. The Courser tries to get its arms between them so he slams his knife into one of its arms and pulls. The arm splinters open with an ear-splitting screech. The Courser grabs the back of his jacket and throws him clear across the road.

The pavement slams into him when he lands and for a moment he can’t breathe. His lungs are full of the acrid smoke from the car fire and when he hacks out a cough his brain feels like its bulging out of his skull. The Courser’s shadow falls over him and it smiles down at him with what’s left of its face.

“Maybe your decommission will stick this time, Solider.”

It brings up its rifle and the Soldier rolls to the side, grabbing a hub cap and swinging it up at the Courser. It blocks with its intact arm. The Soldier kicks it square in the chest. It stumbles backwards then brings up its rifle again.

The Soldier pulls up the hub cap as the Courser fires. The impact knocks him off his feet again and he ends up staring up at the broken sky of the Wasteland. He needs to get up. He needs to run. But his head feels like its leaking onto the pavement around him.

The Courser looms over and blacks out the sky.

A shot rings out and the Courser’s face splinters apart. Unbothered, it turns to face the attacker. There’s a set of heavy footsteps then a solid blur throws the Courser from view. A sharp clang echoes from somewhere just beyond the Soldier’s sight. The sound repeats itself over and over. When it starts to sound wet, the Soldier rolls to his side.

The man is sitting on top of what’s left of the Courser. The hub cap the Soldier was holding is now in the man’s hands. There’s one final crunch as he slams it into the Courser and its chest gives way with a wrenching groan. The man stares at it while his shoulders heave up and down in huge arcs that remind the Soldier of the rolling hills around them.

Then he turns and looks at the Soldier. The intensity crowding his faces drops away and he looks like he’s been caught out on something.

The Soldier blinks a few times. Each one feels heavier than the last. He’s not sure if it’s from the weight of the blood caked on his face or how his head feels like it’s been peeled-open. Over the man’s shoulders the radiation storm creeps further across the Wasteland. A thick peal of lightening sends a wave of radiation through the air. The Soldier’s skin prickles and starts to itch.

The man gets to his feet and takes a halting step then stops. He holds his hands out like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal and the comparison isn’t really lost on the Soldier. He laughs and unsurprisingly, he sounds like shit. The man brings his hands back to his side and a small frown creases his mouth down.

“You, uh, ok over there?”

Instead of blinking, the Soldier says “sure”.

The man doesn’t seem to notice the Soldier sounds like someone who’s been strangled. His frown pulls down the corners of his mouth further.

“Well you kinda look like you went five rounds with a Deathclaw. And you didn’t exactly win.” A huge bolt of lightning cracks over their heads and a nauseating wave of radiation floods the Soldier’s senses. The man doesn’t flinch. He just keeps looking at the Soldier.

“Had it on the ropes though.”

The man’s frown digs deeper for a moment, then the smallest of smiles creeps across his face.

“Sure you did.”

The man takes a small step forward and holds out his hand. The man looks like he’s willing to stand out here with his hand out until the radiation is so thick that his skin starts to peel from his bones.

The Soldier reaches out and grabs the man’s hand. He hauls the Soldier to his feet and doesn’t say anything about the Soldier leaning heavily against him. The Soldier isn’t sure what he’d say about it either.

“I’m Steve by the way.”

The Soldier doesn’t think he should try out a smile just yet, especially with his face feeling like it was busted open by a mini nuke. But some sort of phantom muscle memory overrides his face and he attempts one anyways.

It can't be as awful as it feels though since Steve's smile widens and creases the corners of his eyes.


	3. Basement Dwellers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest assured, no matter how much time between uploads, I will finish this thing. Whatever it is.  
> This chapter provided by [Nocow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVvEXoR6Ugs).

Despite the minimal amount of intel, the Soldier had an idea of how rest of the interaction with the man, Steve, was supposed to go. He’d spent his night under the truck running through possible outcomes and although the run-in with the Courser hadn’t been anticipated, they technically shook hands when Steve picked him off the road and the Soldier even got a functional smile in. So according to intel, the next step is the exchange pleasantries, which the Soldier could only assume means that neither of them try to stab each other. He is prepared for that outcome.

He is not prepared for the radiation storm to suddenly crash down around them. One moment he’s watching Steve smile back, the next the Soldier’s eyes are full of burning tears and his skin is starting to blister. It all gets a little strange after that. And now he’s here, his unmodified arm tossed over Steve’s shoulder, stumbling through the green, caustic haze. Underneath the pain, there’s a litany of warnings lighting up every corner of his mind. Being pressed so close to another person creates an angry buzz of _twist, snap his arm, get him on his knees—_

Those are not the pleasantries he’d planned on exchanging with Steve. Even if he did escape from Steve, where would that get him? Alone, crawling through a radiation storm and still with plenty of unanswered questions. Getting dragged over the deteriorating landscape is easier than crawling over it while your skin is peeling off. It’s just difficult to tell his mind that.

What the Soldier doesn’t understand is why Steve would actually waste his time with the Soldier’s current wreck of a body. Steve is obviously capable of moving much faster without him and from his greeting at the settlement, he could probably waltz his way through the front gate of pretty much any settlement. There’s nothing to be gained except for more time spent out in the storm. At least nothing the Soldier can figure out. It’s unnerving.

For the time being, all Steve seems to be interested in is moving them forward. The only time there’s any waver in Steve’s step is when the Soldier gets a particularly nasty gulp of radioactive air and starts to hack up his lungs. Steve doesn’t say anything. He just readjusts his grip and keeps them moving, like the radiation seeping out of every crack of the Wasteland is nothing but a soft breeze rolling over them.  

Steve’s resilience is another warning that settles in his mind like a distant explosion quietly flashing across the horizon. The only things that survive radiation storms are the mutated abominations that have adapted, or things like the Soldier who were built for it. Even with all of the Institute’s adjustments the Soldier is only meant to survive. One of his handlers once said to him _survival is compulsory, comfort is not._ A statement that was much more accurate than the vague _Mankind Redefined_ scrawled over the Institute’s logo. It unnerves him that he doesn’t know what side Steve falls on. He glances at Steve and tries to imagine his strong, symmetrical features peeling away to show some hideous thing staring back. There’s nothing monstrous about Steve’s face though. Just a determined, concentrated look locked across it.

More lightning tears through the air and the harsh burn frothing under his skin steals the rest of the Soldier’s attention.

Then out of the blasted hellscape, there’s a house. At least whatever’s left of one. It’s mostly a heap of panelling clinging desperately together. The house might have been blue at some point but most of the paint has since chipped off and been bleached into a sickly grey. Through the haze, the Soldier thinks of some creature curled up in the middle of the Glowing Sea, waiting.

Even still, some of the windows are intact and the front door is still hanging in the frame, which is something that wouldn’t go unnoticed out here especially in the middle of a radiation storm. It’s a bad idea but staying out in the storm is worse. His body is shaking so much that Steve has now taken most of his weight. At least whatever might be in the house can’t tear them apart from the inside. So the Soldier lets Steve drag him into the house.

Once inside, Steve slams the door shut behind them and the Soldier thinks of the pressurized lock on the stasis chamber siding into place. _Don’t resist Soldier, it’s time to rest_. The narrow hallway in front of them tapers off into darkness and the beams above shiver from the force of the storm. The stasis chamber wasn’t really about rest. It was just an intermission between an unending flood of terrible things.

Steve lets him go, probably thinking that the Soldier would lean against the door. It’s admirable that Steve has that much confidence in the Soldier. The fight with the Courser wasn’t that long ago and the radiation exposure hasn’t helped though so the Soldier sinks to the floor. Steve crouches in front of him and whispers, “I was gonna say don’t go anywhere while I check it out, but I think you’ve got that covered.”

The Soldier draws his knife and settles against the front door. Steve snorts softly and pads down the narrow hallway, carefully avoiding the debris littering the floor. A memory surfaces of watching someone in a pair of cuffed pants and leather shoes weave their way around a mass of aging gravestones. An uncomfortable tightness wedges itself between his ribs. His unmodified hand twitches forward, reaching out. The darkness at the end of the hallway swallows Steve and the Soldier tightens his grip on his knife instead.

It’s not long after that his unmodified arm starts to shake. He tries to switch his grip but his modified arm makes a painful grating sound and the knife clatters to the floor. He doesn’t bother lifting his sleeve to check the malfunction. It’s the same grating pain of the earlier damage, which means he’ll have to get out the repair kit in his bag. From the way his unmodified hand is shaking and the muddy blur in the corners of his vision he doesn’t think he’d have the energy or the coordination to even try.

All he seems to have energy for is slumping further against the door. The only sounds so far are of Steve puttering around, knocking into things and cursing quietly in an attempt to maintain some sort of caution. The Soldier gets a mixed feeling of relief and dread that if there is anything else in the house, Steve would probably run into it first.

It floats into his mind that Steve gets into a lot of shit this way: running head first into it. He doesn’t have much intel to back it up. Mostly it just makes his splitting headache worse and he swears he can hear his handler sighing and saying _recalibration_ somewhere overhead.

He turns his focus to the debris cluttering the hallway. There’s a baby carriage with a rusted frame a few feet away. A small stuffed bear rests against the padding and a bag is half-wedged underneath the main compartment. Probably put there in a hurry but it’s still in the hallway, still waiting to be used.

There’s also the usual mess of dirt and dead leaves but there’s a dull glint underneath the grim. The Soldier squints, trying to focus on where it came from since the windows closest to him are still intact. The pain from the split in his head sharpens to a tight squeeze that steals his breath for a few moments. When the pained fog at the corners of his vision lessens, he realizes there are dozens of picture frames scattered across the floor. Most of them are shattered and the images underneath have faded from exposure. The few that have survived only have fragments of their former selves remaining: an arm, a leg, the edge of a skirt, a sliver of face.

Thunder rumbles outside and the Soldier squeezes his eyes shut as more radiation crackles through the air. It feels like he is being unmade again. Like he’s going to open his eyes and see his arm missing or hear the half-interested hum of a scientist say _We haven’t seen that before. Up the voltage._

The thunder is replaced with the crunch of boots on glass. The Soldier opens his eyes.

It’s just Steve, half emerged from the darkness at the end of the hallway. His face is edged with shadow and an expression that makes the Soldier want to reach for his knife. His body doesn’t respond though and all he can do is curse himself for dropping his knife in the first place. Then Steve steps closer and the shadows slip away as well as the intensity. The change is so abrupt that the Soldier feels like he’s been thrown into the side of a truck again. Steve crouches in front of the Soldier with small, hopeful look.

“Think I found something.”

***

Steve carries him through a doorway and down into the basement. A low grade warning prickles through the Soldier as they descend the stairs. Basements in the Wasteland are never pleasant and he hopes Steve at least did some reconnaissance before bringing him down here.

There’s a soft glow that looks like radiation at the bottom of the steps. He wonders if Steve realizes that the Soldier isn’t built like him. He can only endure so much and Steve just seems to keep moving. It must be exhausting, at least it would be for him. But Steve doesn’t seem to be built like that.

Once they reach the bottom of the steps, the Soldier realizes that the glow isn’t from any radiation. It’s from a small scatter of lit emergency candles. Steve carefully lowers the Soldier next to them then goes back up the groaning, ancient stairs, leaving the Soldier to stare past the candlelight. It looks like someone went to some lengths to repurpose the space into a fallout shelter. The walls are thick concrete and a generator sits in the far corner. There are storage shelves with canned food and water as well some medical supplies. There’s a shape just beyond the reach of the candlelight and it takes the Soldier a moment to realize it’s a mattress. The sheet drawn over it doesn’t lie flat. It’s propped up in the middle by two shapes huddled around something. The lack of dust over the sheet probably means that it was Steve who put it there. The Soldier thinks of the carriage sitting unused upstairs. It’s a sad little tableau but one he’s used to seeing out here. If anything, it just makes all of his current aches settle in deeper.

Then Steve is back, crouching in front of the Soldier and blocking out the rest of the basement.

“How are you feeling?”

Looking up at Steve requires more effort than he was prepared for and it takes the Soldier a moment to focus on his face. When he does, he’s only a little amazed that Steve is still smiling. It’s small and hesitant, but its there. It would be a good strategy to keep it there.

“Like I went five rounds with a Deathclaw and lost.”

Steve laughs quietly at that and his smile grows.

“Yeah, no kidding. How’s the head?”

This line of questioning is veering into the opposite of the target of keeping a smile of Steve’s face. There’s a sluggish, long unused part of his mind that supplies his next words.

“Think that Deathclaw might have stepped on it once or twice.”

Steve laughs again and turns to dig through his pack. The Soldier thinks its strange that he doesn’t at least look over his shoulder but he seems pretty intent on doing the exact opposite of that. Steve manages to scrounge up some semi-clean rags from his bag and wets them with water from his canteen.

“Well good news is that your head seems like its plenty hard enough to survive even that. But we should probably clean it if we want to keep it that way.”

He reaches toward the Soldier and the warning sirens in his head restart their screeching. Something must show on his face since Steve draws back his hand and his expression turns sharply down.

“Sorry, old habits die hard I guess.”

The statement is infuriatedly vague but the Soldier doesn’t have the energy to parse it out. The rag stays in Steve’s hand, dripping down onto the concrete. Steve doesn’t move again, just keeps his head down and a frustrated line appears between his brows. Almost like all he wants to do is help.

The Soldier draws in a deep breath and holds it. The litany in his head is an instinct that has been drilled and bolted into him. It’s what has kept him alive, scraping together some kind of existence on the edge of everything else. But this isn’t some life or death scramble to bash each other’s heads in. Steve’s taken on a Courser, already carried him across the Wasteland and is now crouched in front of him, waiting for the Soldier to let him keep helping. You have to take things as they come out on the Wasteland and things like this do not happen often.

The Soldier shakes his head and croaks out, “better if you do it.”

Steve eyes him carefully then reaches out again. When the rag touches the side of his face, the Soldier lets out his breath slowly and shivers. Clamping down on his initial instincts, there’s now a strange new edge to the contact. Steve’s eyes are still on him he looks concerned.

“You sure you’re good?”

The Soldier nods once then holds very, very still. His skin feels like its lighting up from underneath and the warmth spreads through his whole body, like he might just light up every corner of the basement. That might just be from all the radiation exposure though. God, he’s fucking tired. He closes his eyes and drifts on the soft scrape of the rags lifting away the blood and grime.

Steve eventually draws back and clears his throat.

“Huh, guess you got off lucky.”

The Soldier opens his eyes looks at Steve, then down to the bloody rag in his hands. Some of it is leaking down Steve’s hand and staining the cuff of his jacket.

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

Steve laughs softly, “yeah, I hear ya. But the wound is already healing up nice, and you haven’t keeled over yet. So prognosis is good.”

“Thanks doc.”

Steve’s smile softens.

“Any time.”

The Soldier wants to laugh but Steve seems so genuine when he says it so he presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and stays quiet. Steve reaches further into his pack and pulls out a small, dented metal case. Something rattles around inside it and it puts the Solider on edge for some reason. Then Steve opens the case and the Soldier realizes why.

They would usually put him under during procedures at the Institute but whatever they gave him never really stuck. He’d often wake up halfway through whatever they were doing but not be able to move. Mostly due to the restraints but also because of the pain. He could always hear everything though. Including the sharp clink of surgical tools being placed back onto the trays.

Steve says something but it comes through as an indistinct murmur under the rush of his heartbeat in his ears. The case and its contents disappear back into Steve’s bag and now Steve is closer, taking up all of his vision. There’s a dull ache at his back that keeps building and the Soldier can feel Steve’s breath brushing against his face as his mouth moves. His hearing comes back with a pop.

“--so I’m gonna assume that’s a no on a stimpak?”

The Soldier blinks a few times and realizes the pain is from pressing himself back against the stairs. He nods slowly and Steve sits back on his haunches and shrugs.

“Hey, I get it. The needles on ‘em don’t fuck around. I screamed like a banshee the first time someone jabbed me with one. Thought it was going to go right through my arm--” The Soldier looks down at Steve’s arms. He doubts a yao guai could bite through them. Then he realizes he’s staring and looks back up at Steve face. Thankfully Steve is fastening the straps on his pack. “--no one’s let me forget it either. But you’re doing pretty good on your own anyways and we got time.”

Steve smiles then rolls back on his heels to sit on the ground. His foot brushes against the Soldier’s ankle. The Soldier should move his legs away but the small point of contact is… nice. It’s not overwhelming like all of their previous contact. Just one little point of warmth slowly seeping into his skin. He stays where he is and watches Steve.

The scattered candlelight punches huge shadowy holes out of Steve and every time he shifts, the holes close up and new ones open. He doesn’t look much like the golden idol of the earlier barrel fires. Steve doesn’t look like anything but a tired man sheltering in the basement of a derelict house. The Soldier wonders if there’s anyone out here who helps Steve.

The Soldier clears his throat and asks, “You were heading back to the city, why?”

Steve looks a little taken off guard by the question.

“You were following me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I asked you a question first.”

Steve’s eye brows shoot up for a moment before he schools his expression. He appears to be thinking on what to say next. If the Soldier didn’t know any better, he’d say Steve looks nervous. But he’s seen Steve charge a Courser, so that’s unlikely.

“Yeah I was, but—“

He tapers off and looks at his hands.

“But what?”

“Well, what I was going back to the city for isn’t there anymore, so now I’m kind of working on a next step.”

“What were you looking for?”

Steve _looks_ at him then. Not a look that goes through him but one he can feel curling gently against him. He doesn’t look away and neither does Steve. It’s as strange feeling to be looked at, not observed or studied. Then Steve looks back down at his hands.

“Something I thought I lost a long time ago.”

He doesn’t explain any further but the Soldier understands that whatever it was must have been important to Steve.

“I could… help you find it.”

The words are out of the Soldier’s mouth before he can think on them. He can track, the Institute made sure of it. He doesn’t regret saying it since Steve looks back up at him and smiles. The only point of contact is still Steve’s foot against the Soldier’s ankle but the same earlier warmth spreads through him.

“Yeah?”

The Soldier returns Steve’s smile with his own small one.

Whatever the Soldier was planning to say next is eaten up by something crashing into the floor above them and shrieking out a guttural and pained sound. The Soldier snaps his mouth shut and reaches for his knife. Steve rolls to a crouch and takes out a pistol. Fine dust rains down from the ceiling as whatever is above them continues to thrash around.

After what seems like an eternity, the thing falls silent and the dust stops falling. Steve leans towards him and the Soldier notices there are flecks of dust covering Steve’s eyelashes. Then Steve whispers “Whatever the fuck that was is probably gone but I’ll take first watch. You get some rest.”

His breath is warm against the Soldier's ear and he finds himself shivering for no apparent reason. He nods and closes his eyes but has no plans of sleeping. He shouldn’t let his guard down so completely just yet. He listens to Steve shuffle around the basement for a bit before settling closer to the Soldier. His breaths are deep and even and the Soldier finds himself matching them. He imagines himself in a real bed, one with soft sheets and warm sunlight spilling over it. Steve would be a nice, steady presence on the other side, his back rising and falling with those same breaths. Strangely, it feels like a memory. It’s ridiculous of course. The Soldier has never slept in a bed.

But for the moment, it’s nice to hold onto.

Despite his best efforts, the Soldier drifts off, still leaning against the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All comments, concerns, feedback are appreciated!
> 
> *edit: fixed some ghastly typos


End file.
